


Cold & Naked

by lesbomancy



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls Online
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Body Horror, Bruma, Drabble, Gen, Nudity, Tamriel, Werewolf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-07 19:32:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6821203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbomancy/pseuds/lesbomancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wakin' up after wolfing out, Leo is pretty chilly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold & Naked

It wasn't uncommon for Leo to wake up in the middle of nowhere, naked and covered in a new scar or two. The setting sun told her that laying around would be a bad thing, her shivering body affirming the point. Her pounding head, aching body and the crawling bitter cold seeping into her bones all were enemies to her spotty memory which always took time to reform post-transformation. She pushed herself up to her bare feet, looking around her at several bodies. Longhouse loyalists, enemies to the rebellion which she was a member of. Imperial Guard from the look of it, all of them with their heads nearly torn off and their throats gnawed on to the bone. She looked down at her hands and body, noting the presence of blood both hers and presumably theirs. Fingertips touched the crimson caked to her upper body and mouth, dispelling all curiosity as to what happened.

She closed her eyes and leaned against a tree, fingernails biting into bark as she grew warm at the memories. Running from the guardsmen as they found her separated from her scouting company. Her legs tensing and screaming at her while she broke into the forested woods around Bruma. She gritted her teeth and pushed herself from the tree, wandering over to one of the bodies similarly sized to hers. She pulled each of the soldier's boots off and crammed them on her own feet, ripping a wolfskin fur coat from their shoulders to use as her own. She wondered what that meant ethically, eating humans as a wolf and wearing a wolf's skin as a human.

The less she took from the corpses the better, she didn't want to be tied to what was a clear werewolf attack. Even in the midst of a war she could end up dead before she put her head to bed at the end of the week. Leo remembered stashing her gear.. somewhere south of this pathway. A stone bridge near a brook, near a cabin. It took her a few minutes in thought with her chattering teeth before she started off down the path towards the bridge, eventually coming upon it without any other soul in sight. She leaned down near the bank of the stream, hand touching a dried mark of blood on the wall near a mound of freshly buried dirt and snow.

Being a monster sucked, but damn if it didn't make your sense of smell amazing. Her natural musk and perfume on her armor and kit guided her through the earth as tanned hands broke through snow and frost, unearthing her cloak-wrapped armor. She paused, her mouth opening.

This is where it happened.

Displaced earth and nearby paw prints were remnants of her transformation. A large circle where she writhed and beat her hands against the ground as her body stretched and popped, where fur grew in place of flesh and her bones broke and reassembled stronger, with more to them. The curse, the blessing, the Gift of Hircine. She was warm at the thought of it, salivating and sweating as it called to her again, the constant temptation to give in, to be the strong and glorious hunter that she was when she prowled as neither animal nor human but the monster in between. Her hands left her kit, palms running along her stomach and side as she thought about it.

Leo stood up and shook her head wildly, the loose curly mass of hair getting in her face. She brushed it aside, leaned down to pick up the kit and started off towards the farmhouse. She smelled fire and meat. Fresh and cooked alike, some human and some livestock. She could use a meal. She stopped at the edge of the path, looking over to the paw prints she made only hours before, following them to the treeline. It was one of the few occasions where she needed to use it to live, needed to be the other to remain herself. The blood lingered in the air and on her body, something she'd scrap off with snow before she got to the farmhouse. Despite how necessary it was, she was worried at how she lost control. Usually she was aware and able the entire time, no matter who or what she killed... or ate.

Fuck that, she thought. Just need to be better.

She leaned down and picked up some snow, using it to clean her body off of blood before she made her way across the stone bridge, leaving the scene behind her. Cougars, wolves and bears would pick it clean before long. She'd be gone tomorrow. The heat of the campfire in front of the cabin greeted her along with an older man and what looked to be his grandchildren. Nords, of course, it was Bruma county after all.

They were more than accommodating to a half-frozen naked Imperial sergeant in wolfskin. Something she'd always remember when the bitter chill set into her bones again. Beef stew with an irony, full taste.

No other stew ever beat it.


End file.
